Jesus is real -   To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven

 September 8, 2011

Today as  I was driving towards Texarkana Arkansas for a smoke school, I turned on the radio and scanned through the cannels. Next thing you know a man and a woman were saying that Jesus is real. I started to switch off the radio and slide in my John  Mellencamp album that I am presently addictive to. The name of the album is "The Best That I Can Do." I wanted to hear the song I Was Born in a Small Town, that I was hearing in my head at the time. Just before I hit the play button, I looked beside the road at a sign that said Jesus is real. Irony is one thing but  I decided that maybe Jesus did want to talk to me, so I better shut up and listen.

I am 63 now and I have had a very productive life. I have been there, done that. I have seen most of the beautiful places in America including the mountains on the California and Oregon coast, the Blue Ridge of Virginia, the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, The Grand Canyon, The Everglades, and the Louisiana Bayou Swamps. I have seen plenty of buffalo, crocodiles, and 14 foot alligators. And believe it or not, I have seen and talked to Jesus and Jesus is real.

We recently finished screening in our back porch and added a hot tub for my arthritis and sore bones. I was listening to Mellencamp and the steady rain on the tin roof. I was praying out loud  as I often do. A gust of wind blew the curtain behind me and I thought it was Jesus walking through the screen door. I said that you would scare the hell out of me if you walked in here out of the darkness. In a very calming voice he said that I had seen him before.  Instantly my mind flashed back 50 years ago to a time and a place that I had almost forgotten. I was in the Air Force stationed in Sacramento California where I was first exposed to the make love not war movement among the hippies. We are all born as children of God with a hole in our heart where Jesus could live if we invited him in. We all fill empty without him and we try to fill in the hole with about anything that comes along. Back in the early 1970's I filled in my hole with marijuana Ty Tea, speed, hash, and LSD. It was peer pressure and all of my peers were doing it. We all shared tiny tablets of acid, put on a Beatles album, and watched the musical notes spin out of the vinyl. Sometimes we would stand a freshly lit Winston upright on the desk top and watch the ashes fall- Groovy.

The next thing I knew, I was laying down on the bottom bunk of what appeared to be my childhood home on Nichols Ave on the improvised south side of Monroe Louisiana. I looked down and saw shoes lined in a straight line under the next bunk, just exactly like my Marine Corp Dad had taught me. One set of shoes were leather Roman sandals and there were feet and legs standing in them. There was a white robe hanging just above the sandals. My eyes drifted up the robe and I saw the face of Jesus. He had smiling hazel kaleidoscope eyes that smiled and winked at me. "I must be dead," I said. "Where is my grandmother and where is my old dog Blue?" I asked. He answered, "You are not dead and I am here to take care of you." Although I am the worlds largest sinner, Jesus has taken care of me as he always has. I would not be here if he did not. I could not imagine coping with all of life's little problems without Jesus. I put all of  my faith and trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord, don't rust in the Lord. Rust never sleeps.

After the California Awakening, I preached for 7 years in the Assembly of God Church in Altus Oklahoma until like Job, I lost everything, my home, my wife, my child, and my $50 John Boat with the leaky holes in the floor. I started running from God, but he has continued to take care of me. At 63 I have decided to stop running from him and start running to him. He healed my second wife Marie of terminal pancreatic caner in an Assembly of God Church in Biloxi Mississippi 20 years ago and she is still alive and fat now. He healed me of bladder cancer 7 years ago. Praise the Lord. Jesus created man in his image and woman for one reason and one reason only. To communicate and have a relationship with him. You have not because you ask not. Ask and you shall receive, ask and it shall be given.

My local Air Force recruiter recently informed me that over 50% of all young men between 22 and 35 are unfit to wear the uniform of the US Air Force, because  they dropped out of high school or have been convicted of a drug charge. The radio people who said Jesus is Real blamed the American youth problems on designer drugs. The radio people said the churches are not fulfilling the spiritual needs. People need to sing, dance, walk, and live with a personal relationship with Jesus. David sang and danced in the presence of the Lord. Just because we are in the IPHONE Age doesn't mean we can't rejoice in the Lord.

The very next day I passed a sign in Texarkana that said "Bibles $1 each". Maybe Jesus was finishing his conversation. I finally stopped and purchased 200 Bibles. God is persistent in his calling. Many are called but few are chosen. We are in for very difficult times. I have passed hundreds of 18 wheelers loaded with large round bales of hay on the way to feed the Black Angus cows of West Texas. I heard on the radio today that they are expecting a 7 year drought. Twenty years ago my Indiana corn farmer father-in-law Ed Lundergan, warned me that the Farmer's Almanac predicted that everything south of the Ohio River would be a dust bowl.  All of the lakes in Texas are dried up. Toledo Bend is 9 feet below normal level. Piers are on dry land. Indian mounds are exposed for the first time in 50 years. We are about to enter a world wide famine. Bread could reach $10 a loaf. There are floods,  hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes in diverse places. America is out of work. The stock market is like a roller coaster. The world economy is busted and China wants to conquer the world. We could not beat them in Korea or Vietnam. There are millions of Chinese soldiers and they are all over the Book of Revelations. There are wars and rumors of war in the Middle east. These are the end of times and Jesus is coming soon. Matthew 24:27 For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Ecclesiastes 3

¹ To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

² A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

³ A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

⁴ A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

⁵ A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

⁶ A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

⁷ A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

⁸ A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

⁹ What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?

¹⁰ I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.

¹¹ He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

¹² I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life.

¹³ And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.

¹⁴ I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.

¹⁵ That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.

¹⁶ And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.

¹⁷ I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.

¹⁸ I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

¹⁹ For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.

²⁰ All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

²¹ Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?

²² Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?

God is calling me and Paul to start a Wednesday night Bible Study praise, prayer, and worship service for you to feel the presence of God. Where ever 2 or more are gathered in his name, he will be there. The Holy Ghost will be present and will be working miracles just as Jesus and the deciles did in the New Testament. It will be at our home at 1305 Charles Griggs RD, West Monroe Louisiana. Please come.